Heaven And Hell Records is pleased to announce the addition of Steel City’s premier technical-power thrashers, Invid, to their ever-growing collective.
Invid’s roots stretch back to 1989 when Jere Jameson and Chuck Brummond (Werhwolfe, Darkmoon) would leave Altoona, Pennsylvania after the collapse of the short-lived thrash metal ‘supergroup’ DeadZone. However, after relocating the band to Pittsburgh the project would begin to fall apart leaving Jamieson and Brummond to begin all over again with all new players. But not all would be from the ground up, the duo did have a theme, style, look, and sound in mind that they wanted to have with the new band. And they even had a name, Invid.
Jameson’s friend and former Bird Of Prey bandmate Matt Rudge was recruited to fill the second guitarist position for that twin guitar attack. Both had also previously played with bassist Jason Myers (Icarus Witch) who would be brought on board. A search for a singer and frontman was now on. It would prove short due to Myers knowing a local musician named TJ (Tommy James) who could command a stage and had a versatile vocal range and could hit those high notes.
After the lineup was finalized, Invid continued working on new songs. Jameson and Brummond had developed the framework for the band’s identity with early demos of songs like “Denial of Mercy”, “The New Dark Ages”, and “Universal Fear”.
“We wanted to incorporate the aggression of thrash with the technical aspects of progressive metal while keeping the straightforward power and hooks of classic metal, all wrapped up in a package of dystopian future sci-fi.” - C. Brummond
The lineup changed once again when Jameson, a founding member would leave to join the Army followed shortly by Matt Rudge heading off to college.
“This one-two punch put Invid in a challenging position and it wasn’t entirely clear if we could keep the project going, at least not without compromising our initial vision.” - C. Brummond
Invid had come too far and made too much progress to abort the mission so they would adapt. TJ took over the second guitar position while still handling lead vocal duties. His friend Shawn Cray stepped in on drums. This four-piece line-up would last for around a year until yet another change in the line-up would occur when James and Cray would depart leaving only Brummond and Myers to carry on.
The two would then join forces with three Pittsburgh-based musicians: vocalist Michael DeGrena (Order of Nine), guitarist Michael Chiccitt (Order of Nine), and drummer Keith Hurka. Chiccitt had recently left a death metal band to put together a more traditional metal band.
It was 1991 and the band wasted little time in going into the recording studio to track a three-song demo. The demo was shopped to network industry conventions and mailed out to every metal label. The band was finally firing on all cylinders and earning a reputation in the Pennsylvania club scene opening for touring legends like Fates Warning and Vicious Rumors, as well as headlining their concerts. Their cassettes and merch sold well regionally as they received airtime on college radio like Pitt’s station WPTS where they were often guests. The following year Invid return to the studio to lay down two more tracks. Soon after the five members would move to South Florida and try to immerse themselves in the once-thieving metal scene there. However, they would discover that the once vibrant scene was dimming quickly. Eventually, the members of the band one-by-one would leave the band.
Invid stormed onto the underground scene in the late ‘80s and by the mid-'90s the band had dissolved back into the metal cosmos never to be heard from again (until now).
Scheduled for release in October/November of 2022, Heaven And Hell Records will release a limited edition CD that will include both Invid demos from 1991 and 1992. All six epic tracks have been remastered by Jamie King Audio. The package will include photos, lyrics and an extensive band history essay by Chuck Brummond. The cover artwork was created by Steve Cobb based on the concepts and designs of Chuck Brummond.
Journey Of The Blind tracklisting:
"Silent Termination"
"Journey Of The Blind"
"Ascension" (instrumental)
"Universal Fear"
"Crypt of Reflection"
